‘Hacking, cyber crimes to cost $180 bn loss’

The Middle East region will suffer around USD 180 billion in the next four years because of hacking and cyber crimes, experts have said.

Hazem Nabeel, Director of the Egyptian intellectual property society, told KUNA yesterday that a recently conducted conference in Egypt called on countries to allocate large sums of money to fight cyber crimes.

The conference, co-organised by the Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA) and the association of software producers, aimed at fighting cyber crimes and protecting intellectual property, said Nabeel.

Hacking and cyber crimes are one of the key crimes committed through internet, he said and noted that these crimes caused lots of damage in the Middle East and African regions in 2005 and 2006.

Copied softwares spread by 60 percent in the Middle East and African regions in 2006, a three percent increase than the previous year, said Nabeel.

He said hacking and cyber crimes cost around USD two billion and 1.615 billion in damage in 2005 and 2006 respectively.

Mohammad Omran, head of the technology development authority, said international agencies dealing with hacking should coordinate efforts to combat these crimes.

Speaking to KUNA, Omran said the information technology sector was booming and was creating new horizons for development, but it has opened new ways for illegal trade, thus negatively affecting economies.

Hacking harms everybody, he said.